Indeed, our own polling shows that the majority of users are upgrading to Windows 8, although there are certainly many holdouts bitter about the changes.

While some upgrades have been via disc, the new OS has largely been digitially distributed.
[Image Source: The Verge]

Windows 8 is the first Microsoft OS to transition to a primarily online distribution. That shift has not seemed to adversely impact sales. It appears Microsoft timed its transition to disc-less media correctly.

There were more apps in the Windows Store at launch than any other app store at their launch and since then, the number of apps in the Windows Store has doubled. A number of apps in the Windows Store have crossed the $25,000 revenue mark and the developer keeps 80% of the revenue they make off downloads for the life of their app. A lot of great new apps have been added to the Windows Store since launch such as CBS, ABC News, ABC Family, Engadget, Flixster, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Vimeo and my (current) personal favorite - Top Gear.

A strong app market is good news for Microsoft. While it offers a more favorable revenue split than other players like Apple, Inc. (AAPL) or Google Inc. (GOOG) (with developers keeping 80 percent of the revenue), Microsoft still is closing the loop to include itself in Windows software sales profits.

In the past, Windows Certification processes offered up small cuts to Microsoft, but software publishers largely pocketed these profits. Now Microsoft has cut out the middle man by playing super-publisher with Windows 8, the same move Google and Apple have made with their mobile and personal computer platforms (although Google does allow unofficial third party channels).

Microsoft needed a bold reinvention in the mobile direction to keep up with market trends.
[Image Source: Bloomberg]

Looking ahead, Microsoft has a lot of unanswered questions -- most notably on the leadership front. Windows 8 was the baby of departed Windows President Steven Sinofsky. His shoes are currently being filled by former CFO and CMO Tami Reller on the business/marketing front and by Internet Explorer, Office and Windows interface veteran Julie Larson-Green on the software/hardware development front.

And the deep divisions between those who love Windows 8 and those who hate it, could hint that sales may dip to a slower pace than Windows 7 after the fans have completed their upgrades.

But, given the already modest success, and given the life-or-death need for Microsoft to have a cohesive, touch-friendly mobile platform, it appears overall Microsoft made the right choice. Windows 8 isn't perfect, certainly and as they say, haters are going to hate. And that is certainly true of Windows 8. But it's better to be hated for innovation than panned for lack thereof.

Worldwide, Android outsold it's nearest competitor, IOS, at around a 2 to 1 ratio in third quarter 2012. Linux is doing just fine.

Metrics that reflect adaptation *choices* would be interesting. I suspect if you cut out the automatic corporate mass license upgrades the Windows 8 picture would not seem so rosy.

I personally can account for hundreds of corporate Windows licenses on machines that were immediately wiped and replaced with Linux, unfortunately that was the only way we could get the hardware at the time, we had to pay the "Windows Tax".

Microsoft's numbers seem mostly about maintaining appearances until they can dump Ballmer, repudiate their "STFU, we already know what's good for you" marketing approach, and maybe actually turn into a company worth dealing with. They will be far more desolated before that happens.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates